From what I gather it's not always reliable as history. But there were also a lot of figures then unfamiliar to me such as Sulla and Lysander and the book never lost my interest. Given that from the time I was a teen I was a fan of Mary Renault's and Robert Graves novels about ancient Greece and Rome, and familiarity with Shakespeare's plays (several of which were based on Plutarch) that means quite a few of the figures featured were already familiar to me: Theseus, Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Brutus. Maybe it helped that by then I had made my way through Homer, Aesop, the four surviving Greek playwrights, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Vergil. I first read these when I was a college dropout for a time, and was reading through Good Reading's "100 Significant" books so my brain wouldn't turn to mush: I found it a favorite. I thought it a wonderful and engaging introduction to the most illustrious personalities of Greco-Roman antiquity. Maybe this makes me perverse, given the number of reviewers I've heard describe them as dry. And yes, I read the whole thing and was never bored. My edition of Plutarch's Lives as translated by Dryden is nearly 800 pages. This is often known as the "Parallel Lives" because these biographical sketches come in pairs, one Greek, one Roman, followed by a comparison.
#PARALLEL LIVES FULL#
The work is full of ideas, principles and arguments that can be found running through all Civilization over the last 2,000 years.Plutarch constructs his work using a unique juxtaposition of paired Greek and Roman lives.This is a very worthy translation by J & W Langhorne.
#PARALLEL LIVES SERIES#
Over many years Plutarch wrote a series of 'Lives' of famous ancient men: Written in the First Century it is regarded as a majorly important semi-History and reference for people, events and conditions of the late pre- and earliest post-Christ world of Greeks and Romans.It explores famous people for their good and bad characteristics and behaviours viewed from an Ethical-Moral standpoint.It would be valued as a great work if only its secondary information on Alexander the Great (356-323) and Julius Caesar (100 to 44) had survived, but there is much more including a Roman King, brilliant orators, adventurers etc.
Plutarch lived AD 46 TO AD 120: A Greek who became a Roman Citizen and was 1 of 2 Priests at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (origin of the Oracle).
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